Sarah Weston is a horse lover, and has been a horse owner and trainer for many years.
Copies of her book, No Fear, No Force - A Guide to Handling the Semi-Feral Foal can be obtained direct through her website:
www.logicalhorsemanship.co.uk

Thursday, December 31, 2009

I am feeling very optimistic about 2010. I have resolved to approach my work with horses with a light heart rather than a heavy one, no matter how much pressure there is from outside influences; to continue to work on my self-esteem and to let go of my ego and to have more fun with Petra Perkins. I rode her out today with David on Chancer and she was an angel; standing still to hold open the gates and walking quietly all the way home.

I like to write down all the bad things that have happened during the year and to throw them on the fire. The loss of Piper, Raine and lately Jenny's pony Peppercorn have all been difficult to take and also the loss of my lovely old friend, Ron, who was always so supportive of the work I was doing.

I'm going to be starting my new book in the new year too - all the chapter plans are done. It's going to be called Piper's Legacy.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Serendipity, the Curly foal is Lorraine's new pony and I am hoping to meet her in the New Year. The breed standard of this North American horse says this:

"Whether in draft, pony, or in one of several saddle types, the North American Curly horse is a very naturally successful horse. We look for a hardy, sound, well proportioned, well-balanced curly-coated horse,usually seen with a high head carriage and forward way of going with an overall desirable conformation. It will show a gentle, calm, docile demeanor, yet remain alert. It will exhibit friendliness, intelligence, and a willing, dedicated work ethic. Stallions will display masculinity and mares will display femininity. Thickness and type of muscle pattern will vary with type, but its muscling will be ideal for the disciplines its type is best suited for.

The coat is the Curly’s main "claim to fame". The Curly horse does have a unique curly coat. It is most obvious in winter, when its longer coat shows thick dense curls similar to a sheep fleece. In summer, the Curly horse sheds its thick curly body coat for a smoother, sleeker summer coat, which may or may not show evidence of curl. Its mane and forelock, the hair inside it ears, and often its fetlocks will typically remain conspicuously curly year round. The Curly coat is hypoallergenic for many people allergic to other horses."

In the meantime, Jenny has been playing with her Mum's new pony, Poppy, who is about 19 months old and pretty bombproof already. It looks like she will be really useful at the household chores, especially, laundry.

Yesterday our Christmas plans were interrupted by a beautiful blonde called Tequila. Sarah, her owner, had brought her down to the New Forest so that she could ride out with her daughter in Christmas day but unfortunately, when it came time to go home, Tequila was adamant that she wouldn't load. The little trailer on which I normally store my panels was full of firewood and so we had to barrow that all down to the house before dashing up to Fritham to pick up the panels. We arrived Sarah and Tequila in just over an hour and loaded her into the horsebox pretty quickly. Despite looking relatively calm, Tequila's bottom lip was pretty tight and once in the box, with the partition closed, she began to rear. I felt that it would be better to travel her loose with the partition pushed all the way over to the wall so we took her out again and rearranged everything. She loaded readily this time and was fine while we closed up the ramp and the top door. She had a good journey home, being able to spread her feet out and stand like a table. We went off to Bournemouth and got some thermal lined curtains in the sales.

From Sarah: "Your presence yesterday, helped us all so very very much and I can't thank you enough for abandoning your plans for the day to come to our assistance. Of course getting Tequila in the box was the ultimate goal, however, so much more was achieved. Your communication and handling skills with all of us, horse and human, ultimately, put us all at ease.

Tequila traveled home calmly, mostly choosing to stand facing the rear of the box, however Gem tells me that she did turn and have a look through the cab window before turning away to munch on some hay.

When we all arrived home, it was me who was drained and shaking, our pony was as cool as a cucumber. I climbed through the back door, gave her a hug, clipped her onto the lead rope, gave Steve the thumbs up to open the door. Tequila stood by me, had a look to see where she was and waited for me to lead her out and home. Thank you so much, both of you. You've done so much more than just load our lovely pony!"

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Amongst the Christmas cards we have received, we have this cheerful looking picture of Welley (Wellow Leaf) and Elmo (with Rob and Linda). It's over a year since we loaded Welley to go to his new home.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

A full fourteen days off this Christmas - makes a change from horse training and horse sitting. I am looking forward to riding my own horses and to settling down with a good book in the evenings. I've got Born to Whisper, By Nicole Golding and Adam Goodfellow, the sequel to Whispering Back. Nicole and Adam are both RA's; Whole Heart, Whole Horse by Mark Rashid - in hard back with huge writing; and Wild Horses of the World by Moira Harris - I would love to train a foal from each breed.

Next year is already starting to get busy with horses to go and see every day in the first week. I'm really looking forward to 2010. I think this year I have really got my head around the difference between self esteem and ego and much as I like positive feedback, it's whether I am doing the best I can for the horses and people I meet that counts.

Merry Christmas to anyone that is reading this and a very happy New Year too. I am very happy to receive enquiries about appointments for next year and curious to know what resolutions you are setting for you and your horse.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Today it was off towards Bath to meet a handsome Cleveland Bay cross that has fallen on hard times until very recently. He was so thin and anaemic when his new owner got him that she hasn't been able to bring herself to take a photograph of him. She is keen to get their relationship off to the best start and to answer some of the questions he has started to ask now that he is feeling better and brighter. He has had a few ridden issues including napping, bucking and rearing. It was great to work with someone who recognises that it might be a long (and expensive, time consuming and patience testing) road to his recovery and that there may be a stack of issues to deal with along the way starting out with all of the physical things. Even before my visit today she has had his back checked, his teeth done and he has had blood tests to make sure he has no lasting deficiencies. He has had a new saddle and will have that checked every three months to make sure that it continues to be comfortable and to take account of his developing muscles and, hopefully, fat (not fat fat but just weight). Today we went through the basic groundwork exercises to make sure that there are no gaps there and next she is going to cover desensitisation. He is already being lunged but there would be a lot of value in long reining him to help him to build up his muscles whilst working in straight lines, to address any crises of confidence and to ask him to accept direction.

Yesterday Jenny and the Screamers as we are becoming known, had lunch with the Animal Rescue Team as their way of saying thank you for the acting work we have done over the last year. Me, I'm just the agent but next year I hope to be looking for more people as the Animal Rescue Courses get extended even further. Jim, Anton, Buster and Colin are hoping to make the new Animal Rescue Headquarters at Lyndhurst a centre of excellence for animal rescue on this country and have exciting plans to build up a team of trauma vets aswell as inter-force competitions. A former three day eventing course in the Forest has been offered as a venue for staging all types of rescues. Although we always have a great laugh, the purpose behind these courses is deadly serious and the training aims to make fire officers and vets safe and professional, to protect the public and to save the lives of animals in difficulty. I know of several people who have the fire service to thank for getting their horses out of a predicament even in this county including a poorly foal that fell down and couldn't get up and a horse that went through a cattle grid. In the old days it would almost certainly have been curtains.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

I slept with Jenny for the first time last night - she had the top bunk and I had the bottom bunk, taking me back to when I was about seven when my friends and I would lie awake giggling nearly all night. Jenny and I were staying with Tabitha and George at Chard where we were training their two Bodmin Moor colts, Magic and Merlin. Thank goodness that they didn't turn the telly on an hour later or these beautiful ponies would be called Anton and Brendon!

Both ponies were tricky, through no fault of their own, and I was very grateful that I had Jenny with me to double the amount of training that we could do. Having started life in Cornwall, the ponies have made their way through the sales to a local dealer who has about 40 for sale and I don't suppose that any of their previous handling had been very sympathetic. Even the cat jumping down onto the roof of the stable frightened the living daylights out of them and we had to back track quite a way to build up their confidence again. Nevertheless, by the end of today Magic (7 months old) had his headcollar on and off seven times and Merlin (14 months) was being led using a pashmina! He will need a lot more touching before he will accept a headcollar easily but he was enjoying having his neck and back rubbed and his face stroked very gently.

A few weeks ago, Guy the farrier came to trim the horses and had a decided limp. Not a little limp, a really big limp. He explained that he had an involuntary dismounting incident from his horse, Money Spider. Now, Money Spiders may be small but this one isn't, he's a 17.2 hh Warmblood. You'd think that Guy would have had time to do a triple toe loop on the way down before he landed on his feet. Anyway, I offered to spend some time with Spider to see whether there was any desensitisation work that would help him to be a bit less spooky.

Spider put me in mind of Amarosso, the 11.2hh warmblood in a 17 hand suit that I met in Tanzania. Like Amarosso, it appears that Spider has been hit quite badly at some stage in his past and he is terrified of anything that looks remotely like a whip. Although Guy doesn't even carry a whip, this fear gets them both into trouble from time to time.

As usual I started off with the feather duster before Guy continued with a plastic bag on a stick. By then Spider thought this was all old hat. We then worked with the umbrella and the tarpaulin which Spider tackled with great courage before allowing me to touch him all over with a whip. I wouldn't normally use a whip to desensitise a horse unless I know for certain that one will never be used on him ever again - I maintain that is not fair to desensitise and expect a horse to be sensitive to the same object.

He may not become a police horse overnight but I am hopeful that this and further work will help Spider to get over his phobia.

"Thank you very much for the time you spent teaching both me and Spider, we both enjoyed it. Hopefully, it will prove to be a good base from which we can move forward, literally! I have to say that I was most impressed, something I will pass on whenever I get the chance." Guy Reynolds

Monday, December 14, 2009

I often think about rational versus emotional in our treatment and training of horses. Many of the people I meet are very emotional about their horses - not just joy, happiness and sheer excitement about having them but negative emotions such as disappointment, frustration, and anger when things aren't going right or they fear failure. I often say, leave your emotions at the gate as they won't help and will almost certainly hinder. You can pick them up again on the way out if you want to - but you might find that you don't. Before this sounds like a sermon, I will tell a story against myself. Petra has only just come back into full work for a variety of reasons. Instead of starting off a few steps back from where I left off, I decided to ditch the clicker training that has worked very well in stopping her rushing and to be more forthright about owning speed, direction and destination. Forthright is a euphemism for cross and not only am I ashamed of having got cross with her, but, three weeks later, I am still having to put things right because that cross-ness reinforced everything she has ever believed about humans and made her want to go home even more. (I am back to clickering her every 50 strides and on Saturday, she only rushed for 1/3rd of the ride rather than 1/2 of it - basically the bit where we were facing home!).

Negative emotions get in the way of rational thought and our ability to work things out so that we can make it easy for the horse to do the right thing; the make it more likely that we will punish rather than using measured pressure and release, more likely that we will forget to reward the instant the horse has done the right thing. They affect our patience and our ability to be in the moment with the horse. I went to one lady who was really worrying about the future and lamenting what had happened in the past to such an extent that we struggled to talk about what was actually happening now and how we could train incrementally from there.

I am sure it is harder with your own horse as we are more emotionally involved with them and at risk of feeling slighted or rejected when they don;t do what we want them to do. I often say, if love was enough there would be no behavioural problems at all.

I think positive emotions can help training if they are used to notice, release and reward the instant the horse gets ot right. Instructions need to come from the head and rewards, of whatever kind, from the heart - literally, heartfelt. A lovely rub or a "goooooood booooy", or, like in Harry met Sally, yes!yes!yes!!!!

By the way, the pony in the picture is Blue, and she would like to point out that she has never driven me crazy. How could she?

Saturday, December 12, 2009

While David concentrates on improving his Elton John impression, I am offering a prize (a copy of my book or a Masai Browband [14 1/2 inch]) to the first person* who correctly identifies the true purpose behind this gadget.

Good thinking but incorrect:

A gadget for picking up horses' feet.

Close, but no coconut

For desensitisation of a horse that is worried about being touched.

Correct!

It's a gadget for desensitising the nose of semi-feral foals before introducing a noseband. And the winner is: Annette with Bowdrill......

* Unfortunately Jenny Crouch and members of her immediate family, may not take part. Sorry.

So far so good with the boots although they do make her feet look VERY big. Not sure about the jaunty angle of my hat silk either.

Update 20th december: I have decided to send the boots back as I am not convinced about them. Petra seemed to be clumpy in them and they appeared to affect her gait. I rode out in them in the ice today and she slid all over the place and I didn't feel at all safe - ended up walking her home.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Today I am going to be testing out a set of Old macs on Petra's front feet. I really really hope they will work as I would love to keep her barefoot. I have been doing a lot more riding recently and her feet have really worn down and I was heading towards a set of shoes. My "traditional" farrier is utterly supportive and all for it. If they work for Petra then Chancer will be getting some for Christmas too. Wish me luck - if I lose one in the first muddy puddle I will be very disappointed. The Western saddle is lush but I am still waiting for the blanket to go with it and am having to borrow Chancer's in the meantime.

* A reference incidentally to Ian Dury's album just in case you wondered.

Part II - having turned Petra out in them for a little while this morning, I then went out riding in them. Apart from looking askance when I asked her to stand on a carpet while I fitted them, Petra didn't seem to mind them at all and was certainly more confident on the gravelly ground. Whilst I have a very open mind about horse's being barefoot, I am adamant that horses should not have to be very sore at any stage of their transition or indeed in the long term. I was pleased to see in the Horse and Hound this week an article that confirmed my belief that horses that are sore in their feet will change their gait and end up compensating in other parts of their body, particularly the back. A few years ago we had a horse in like this where the owner was absolutely resolute that the horse would not be allowed to have hoof boots and in the end I had to become equally resolute that in that case she wouldn't be ridden nor long reined. Not only was she starting to go short, she was losing her confidence about crossing streams and tracks - anywhere where the underlying footing was stony.

Yesterday it was off to Swindon to meet a three year old New Forest Pony called Achilles. He came off the Forest when he was eighteen months old and has recently changed hands again. Although he has settled a bit, he was inclined to climb the walls if anyone went into the stable with him and if pushed, threaten to kick. When turned out he jumps out of his field for a pastime. I explained to his owner that I could only work on making him want to stay rather than stopping him leaving - the only thing to prevent that would be higher fences.

We had a great afternoon basically working our way through the technique described in No Fear, No Force. It transpired that Achilles wasn't completely averse to being touched he just had some substantial gaps in his training and was very apprehensive about people's intentions; his muscles tensed whenever we laid a feather duster or a hand on him to begin with. By being careful and subtle about how we approached him, making sure that we rewarded him for softening and allowing things to happen we soon got him leaning into us for more touch and bringing his head round to accept the headcollar. He's actually a very sweet pony and I only wish I had a photo - blimmin' camera ran out of battery. (Apparently it didn't - I got this single picture before it died on me).

Leanne is going to carry on with this work and gradually increase the are where she works with him. In the meantime her boyfriend is going to get busy with a hammer and nails.

E-mail received today:

"After you visit yesterday I popped into the local saddlery and found a rope halter that when undone is a very long rope with a loop in the end very similar to the one we were using yesterday (a bargain at £5!!). This morning armed with a feather duster, new rope, and a headcollar with buckles I went to visit Illie. When I entered he was a bit jumpy and pulled himself up to his full height!! but when I produced the feather duster, he immediately visibly relaxed and walked over quite confidently and sniffed the duster. I was with him for 40 mins and in that time, I rubbed him with duster all along his back both sides, rubbed him with my hand, put the headcollar on and off twice, looped the rope round this neck and he followed me round, then looped the rope through the headcollar. He was a complete star and I can't wait to get down and do some more work with him :-D (I'm going to have to stop myself doing to much!!!)" LK

E-mail 16.12.09: "Just thought I'd drop you a update on Illie. I have continued working with him most days for anything between 5 and 40 minutes. Headcollar going on and off is no issue now, I am continuing to lay it across his neck and move it up but this only takes a few minutes. He is still a little wary of rope but improving daily. We went for a little walk on Sunday and he was star. Approached him tonight and he allow me to rub his shoulder and touch his headcollar without working with feather duster first so I have now removed his headcollar." LK

E-mail 4.1.10: "Illie continues to improve daily, we have progressed to being able to approach without working with feather duster first, we can now put headcollar on over his nose and going for daily walks, he gets turned out in the small gravel yard for a couple of hours daily and can be caught quite easily again. Several of the girls can now approach him in stable and put headcollar on but he will only allow me to catch him in the yard so this is what we are now working on.We have been working on being tied up and he will stand quitely for 10 mins to be fussed over before he starts to get bored, I can now pick both front feet out even when he is loose, I can comfortable to pick up his near hind when tied up and working on his off hind as he is v-touchy about it still. Saying that the farrier visited last week and he stood calmly to allow all his feet to be trimmed. (very v-v- chuffed that day!!).I can now touch him almost all over - including ears, he wore his first bit last week just on a headpiece, so no nose band etc but he was a complete star again. He even wore Paul's cow boy hat on his head the other day after naughtly snatching it of Pauls head when Paul was mucking him out. (wished I had caught it on camera as v-funny)Thank you so much for visiting us as none of this would have been possible without you, I feel we have really unlocked his v-cheeky personality and can't wait to see how he further develops."LK

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Why does feeding become such an emotional rather than rational issue around horses? Is it because they stand and look at you in the most appealing way - until you venture into the field of course and then they put their ears flat back and terrorise each other. I have three fatties at the moment and I am determined to use the winter against them in order to make sure that I don't have to go into another summer worrying about laminitis. One doesn't belong to me so that's fine - he'll be going home anyway but the other two, Jack and Petra, seem to live on thin air. Of course Jack has never done a day's work in his life and arrived with me very cuddly indeed. Petra hasn't had as much work as I would have liked with me being away for a month in July and then injury and rain getting in the way. Nevertheless, I have to take full responsibility for both of them. They have access to about 6 acres of land between four but the grass is well grazed and not high quality; they share that with about 30 deer who come and go as they please. The fat three are getting a couple of handfuls of Fibregold to keep them smiling and no hay at all as yet. Even Chancer has a paunch and so he's only getting one feed a day and still no hay; he has got a rug on but the others are naked. The New Forest ponies are all coming home for one feed a day too but they look absolutely fine on that and the very poor quality but mixed grazing that they have outside. The only one I am really worried about, Thinny (Nelly's best friend) doesn't even belong to me but yes, she comes in and gets a good feed too.

All of this would be fine but the vets have indicated that being kept out without dry feed may be one of the pre-conditions for atypical myoglobunuria as horses are then inclined to eat everything they can get their teeth on - being fat doesn't mean they aren't hungry. In fact I think horses are constantly hungry as it is in their nature to eat nearly all the time - they have to work on the basis that food could be in short supply next week or the week after.

Horses also appear to be eternal optimists - they'll go back to an emptied bucket time and time again just to make sure that nothing has arrived when they weren't looking. When you think about it, food such as grass and leaves must seem to appear by magic to a horse and so it is always worth going back to the same place to see if something has "grown". Butting or nudging for food is also logical to them as that was the behaviour that led to milk magically appearing too.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

As well as the bay baby thing there has been a leading thing going on this week and today it was the turn of Custard and Arnie. Custard has only just arrived with her new owner and seems to be settling well. However, when she wants to move Kerry out of the way, she simply bunts her (very hard) with her nose. As well as asking her to stop that, we worked on asking her to be "with" Kerry rather than having her attention everywhere else.

I have worked with Arnie and his owner Wendy before. He's a very calm and solid Highland pony and would have made a police horse had his legs not been so short! Today it was the turn of Wendy's husband, Barry. The idea was to make sure that we had some level of consistency between the two of them so that Arnie knows, almost literally, where he stands - in a nice way. I also wanted to get them both to leave his nose alone as this sets of his need to nibble and demand attention.

I have seen endless horses that have been taught to nudge, nibble and mess by people who play with their noses. It irritates the life out of them and in the end they have no choice but to develop a strategy to get people to go away. The other good way to teach a horse to do this is to hand feed them - especially if you do it intermittently - so that they learn to demand food. Once a person becomes a food slot machine, the horse becomes a gambling addict.

Following our mounting session a couple of weeks ago, Davy went out for his first ride today with me on foot. We didn't go very far but it was a good start and he coped with traffic and lots of stuff down at the local garage. He wasn't too impressed with water - and there's a lot of it around so that's something we can look at next. We also need to try a different bitting arrangement as he simply plonks his tongue over this one. Dawn is going to give the low port comfort snaffle a go and we might need to put a drop noseband on for a little while - I am hopeful that we can avoid putting a dreaded flash on him if we can find something that suits him better. I suspect (but I don't know) that he has never really been taught how the bit works and has simply leant on it or shoved his tongue over it to avoid the pressure of it.

An early start this morning to go and meet Nicola and Katie (the last of the bay babies this week). This meant a beautiful journey across the Forest as it woke up. Katie is normally a quiet, polite girl but revently she has started to waft her front legs at Nicola on the way out to the field. Having seen her in action it was quite impressive and obviously working for her. I often think that young horses are like the trunk of a baby elephant, they've got 4,000 muscles and they need to know what each one of them can achieve. That's what survival is all about. Anyway, we needed to end Katie's experiments with this particular activity and with some counted stops and backing up we got there. Funnily enough when she does go out in the field, she doesn't explode with energy, so this is just a little pattern that she had got into.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Another big bay baby today. Phineas is almost 15 hands already and he is only 10 months old! His front end is very friendly but his back end was unhandled. It was quite a straightforward job although we had to be mindful of just how long his legs are if he wanted to say "no". The best solution seemed to be to do a little bit of boundary work at the front end and then treat his back end like a semi-feral foal. I used my trusty feather duster to desensitise his bottom and back legs before teaching him to accept my hands. By the end of the session he was really not bothered - I was interrupting his eating after all - and starting to pick his feet up when asked. Jan, his owner, was very pleased with him and I have every confidence that she will be able to carry on with the work. By the time I'd got home she'd been on the IHDG:

"Wow! Can't stop smiling after spending two wonderful hours with Sarah Weston RA this morning. I recently bought an unhandled 10month old colt Phineas and though we've come a long way in the past 3 weeks I realised I needed help re touching his legs and rump areas. Sarah was just amazing and within minutes was getting Phin accepting all sorts of touching/handling with no bullying or manhandling at all. Not only has Sarah helped Phin but had the patience and skill to teach me too! I can't tell you how inspirational and exciting I found the whole experience; what a privilege to be able to work, watch and learn from such a skilled lady. I now feel ready to carry on the brillant work started today and know that Phin's had the very best teacher possible. Thank you Sarah! Oh ,and I'm very proud of my baby too, well done Phin"

E-mail 5.12.09: "Oh Sarah,what can I say? Had Phin's first lesson with me alone today and what a star he was! In fact I wasn't quite sure what to do as he only moved once!!! He was fascinated with the posh new feather duster my daughter bought me (purple and cream sheepskin!) and wanted to keep touching and smelling it as if to say 'thats not right at all'! However, he wasn't at all fazed by it and soon I was at picking up feet stage, which I have to say he did beautifully without falling over. Am I a proud mum or what? :) So I'll keep doing this til he's word perfect and introduce brushing, scarves, towels at some stage. Thank you from me and Phin , Jan x "

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

This is Bowdrill, a young Andulusian type horse that I worked with this morning. But don't be fooled by the top picture, when I met him, we were both soaking wet and bedraggled. Nevertheless we had a good session introducing him to the basic groundwork exercises and some boundaries for his life. A horse's advantages are often his disadvantages and the fact that Bowdrill is frightened of very little means that he is often over confident around people. When he couldn't get me to talk to his front end, he presented his back end for scratching. He did some lovely work and leads beautifully. Afterwards he had a drink and a yawn. His name comes from bow drill, a bushcraft term for the special stick that is used to make fire using friction. His owner, Annette, teaches bushcraft for a living - how cool is that? I've had a good wander around her website which is at http://www.campfireskills.co.uk/ Annette's aim with Bowdrill is to travel across the country on foot - what a great education for a young horse.

E-mail 3.12.09: "Thanks very much for your sound advice, I can honestly say you are the first "horsey" person in many months to give me confidence in what I am trying to do."

This has made me think of two books that I throughly enjoyed and can recommend - Saddletramp and Vagabond, both written by Jeremy James who has written and done such a lot for ILPH (now World Horse Welfare). Once again I have loaned my copies to someone, and they, along with Raising Daisy Rothschild, have disappeared. People will always give you back the money you have loaned them but books.....!!!!!